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Effect of Crosslinking on the Elastic Properties of the Cytoskeleton: A 3D Discrete Modeling Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Florent Dalmas  and
Camilla Mohrdieck
Florent Dalmas
Affiliation:
[email protected], Laboratoire de Recherche sur les Polymères, CNRS-UMR 7581, 2-8 rue Henri Dunant, Thiais, 94320, France, (33) 1 49 78 13 07, (33) 1 49 78 12 08
Camilla Mohrdieck
Affiliation:
[email protected], Universitaet Stuttgart, Inst. of Physical Metallurgy, Heisenbergstrasse 3, Stuttgart, 70569, Germany
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Abstract

In living eukaryotic cells a crosslinked network of polymer fibers, the cytoskeleton, endows the cells with structural integrity and mechanical stability and flexibility. To understand the mechanisms that are at the base of these functions, it is important to know in what way the microstructure and the mechanical behavior of the cytoskeleton change as a function of the type and the density of crosslinking molecules. To address this issue, we have developed a new modeling approach based on the discretization of polymeric fibers that are modeled as homogeneous straight beams in a constant volume. Crosslinks between adjacent fibers are taken into account by creating additional beams between the fibers if their spacing is smaller than a meaningful upper bound. By varying their geometrical and mechanical properties, the influence of the crosslinks on the shear modulus of the network can be studied systematically. Our simulations predict interesting new scaling behaviors that depend on the degree of crosslinking.

Keywords

cellular (material form)self-assemblysimulation
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 975: Symposium DD – Mechanics of Biological and Bio-Inspired Materials , 2006 , 0975-DD01-11
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2007

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